The radically higher number of US equity mutual funds (4,700+) versus ETFs (380+) is not indicative of better stock selection from active management. On the contrary, the vast majority of actively-managed funds do not justify the higher fees they charge. They do not, in terms of stock selection and expected returns, add value versus passively managed benchmarks.

New Constructs assigns a rating to every stock under coverage according to what we believe are the 5 most important criteria for assessing the risk versus reward of stocks. New Con­structs’ stock rat­ings are reg­u­larly fea­tured as among the best by Barron’s.

The Portfolio Management Rating of a fund is based on the aggregated ratings of the securities it holds as well as its overall Asset Allocation. When analyzing equity funds, we use New Con­structs’ stock rat­ings, which are reg­u­larly fea­tured as among the best by Barron’s over the past three years.

As one financial scandal follows another, it seems the good guys are having a tougher time catching the bad guys. Recent revelations about MF Global’s ponzi scheme are another reminder of how our regulatory and oversight systems seem to let whales pass through their net.

Two of the three stocks added to our large/mid cap Most Dangerous stocks list for November are from the energy sector. Those stocks are Energy XXI (Bermuda) Ltd. (EXXI) and Superior Energy Services (SPN) – both get my very dangerous rating as do all of the Most Dangerous stocks.
All of the energy sec­tor ETFs get a dan­ger­ous rat­ing, which means you should sell them.

AAPL gets our “Very Attractive” rating because its economic earnings are positive and rising, it has one of the highest returns on invested capital (ROIC) in the world. At the same time, it’s stock price reflects very low expectations for future earnings growth.

High dividend yields are NOT enough to warrant investing in the utilities sector.
Too many investors put their hard-earned money in utility stocks with the assumption that relatively high-yielding dividends from stable business make a good investment.
The real question that investors in any equity security must ask is: does my expected return from a stock justify the risk of investing in it?